I am extremely pleased to see that the inter American Commission on Human Rights has thrown down the gauntlet to T&T to initiate reform for abolition of the death penalty.
And so I reiterate my long held view that capital punishment has no place in a civilised democratic society.
I also enclose (parts of) a letter to me from the President of the Industrial Court–later to become Sir Isaac Hyatali, Chief Justice of T&T–in supporting my motion before the Senate in 1971, "looking forward to the day when this barbarism ceases to find a place in the statute books of the country."
"The Constitution embodies the parameters within which we are governed as a people. But it is not cast in concrete.
Laws are passed by Parliament. The passage of time identifies good laws and bad laws, and it is the duty of our legislators to correct the anomalies when they are identified.
Recent events have focused once more on the long-hanging issue of capital punishment, and it is incumbent on our leaders to revisit this act of barbarism.
The alternative to capital punishment is incarceration for life without parole. And life must mean life. Some will view this solution as more inhumane than death, but it gives the opportunity for correcting a miscarriage of justice if and when it comes to light. Recent DNA testing in a case in Texas, USA, some 14 years later, belabours the point.
Some will say that keeping a prisoner in jail for life is a costly undertaking. But surely our attitude cannot be 'kill them because it is too expensive to keep them.'
The cogent reasons for abolishing capital punishment are innumerable.
Capital punishment has never been a deterrent to murder. Murder continues in those countries where it is the prescribed penalty, and certainly not to a lesser degree–those who commit these acts always expect to elude the law. The procedures for determining innocence or guilt are far from perfect as they rely on a host of possible pitfalls such as circumstantial evidence, false witnesses, and a jury swayed by emotion.
But surely, at the end of the day a government has a duty to educate and guide its people, especially on issues in which emotions cause us to miss the woods for the trees.
Or am I being na�ve.
Dr R.D. Mootoo